Noah, Vivian Maier among new movies on DVD this week

Capsule reviews of this week’s video releases, on DVD and Blu-ray, including special features:

• “Noah” (PG-13, 131 minutes, Paramount): Anyone familiar with the 500-year-old man and his ark may need to check some of their most cherished visualizations of him at the door. No cozy two-by-two images of beatific giraffes grace this “Noah.” Like any good artist, Darren Aronofsky has avoided predictable, literalist retellings of beloved Sunday school stories by inserting new characters, bringing parenthetical figures to the fore and making one of history’s most enduring and universal myths his own. The result is a movie that is clearly deeply respectful of its source material but also at times startlingly revisionist, a go-for-broke throwback to Hollywood biblical epics of yore that combines grandeur and grace, as well as a generous dollop of goofy overstatement. Contains violence, disturbing images and brief suggestive content. Blu-ray extras: Behind-the-scenes featurettes “Iceland: Extreme Beauty,” “The Ark Exterior: A Battle for 300 Cubits” and “The Ark Interior: Animals Two by Two.”

• “The Other Woman” (PG-13, 109 minutes, Fox): Although this sisterhood romp starring Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann and supermodel Kate Upton nibbles around the edges of revealing truths about relationships, it leaves most of that potential behind, instead pursuing easy, exhausted cliches about zip-less marriages, upper class suburban drudgery, cynical careerism and dumb-but-sweet blondes. Upton may not be able to act her way out of a paper bag, but the filmmakers are counting on audiences not looking at the bag. Somewhere inside all of “The Other Woman’s” tasteful interiors, posh seaside locales and slapstick stridency, there is a decent movie about female competition and friendship. Instead, viewers are treated to a movie as generic and forgettable as the sofa-size art on its characters’ walls. Contains mature thematic material, sexual references and profanity. Extras include a gag reel. Also, on Blu-ray: deleted scenes

• “Finding Vivian Maier” (unrated, 83 minutes, IFC Films): Known by various names throughout her working life, Vivian Maier maintained a fierce aura of mystery, and although she was clearly sympathetic to the vulnerabilities and lonely emotions of childhood, she was capable of shocking cruelty, as one of her former charges recalls. One of the great strengths of “Finding Vivian Maier” is filmmaker John Maloof’s willingness to gently thread ethical inquiry in and out of the film, whether those questions have to do with class (few of the privileged kids Maier took care of ever thought to ask her about her life) or her own behavior with them and the people she photographed. No extras. Contains brief disturbing images.